Before Vicksburg, Saturday, May 30. Warm and dull. Nothing to do and nothing to read so lay down and slept most of the day. Awake at 10 o’clock at night with orders to hitch up, and at quarter to eleven o’clock the pieces and limbers started to the left and front, down through the valley, past sutler shops and baggage wagons, then up a steep bluff, where it required five teams to haul the pieces up; then passed through the advance line of artillery and through a passage dug in the hill, hiding us from view for about six rods, then down into an abrupt ravine. The cannoneers obliged to hold back with prolongs to keep it [the piece] from running down unmanageable.
We were soon at the bottom of the ravine. On the top of the hill the pieces were to be planted. It was 3 A. M. when the artillery on each side and behind us opened a hot cannonading over our heads, grazing the top of the hill so close that we dared not go in position, and we lay at the bottom while they whistled and screeched over our heads. The fiery track of the fuze-shell could easily be tracked through the dark, and the roar of pieces as they echoed was deafening for half an hour, when we put our pieces in position, took the limber under the hill and unhitched.
